Georgia Paycheck Calculator 2026

How this calculator works

Georgia is the first state on this site that actually takes a share of your wages, and it does it in the simplest way a state can: one rate, applied to everything above the standard deduction. There are no brackets to climb, so the arithmetic is the same whether you earn $30,000 or $300,000.

The calculator applies four deductions, in this order:

• Federal income tax. Your gross pay minus the federal standard deduction for your filing status, run through the 2026 federal brackets. For 2026 that deduction is $16,100 single, $32,200 married filing jointly, $24,150 head of household.
• Social Security at 6.2% of gross wages, up to the 2026 wage base of $184,500.
• Medicare at 1.45% of all wages, with no cap, plus the 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax on wages above $200,000.
• Georgia income tax at a flat 4.99% on your pay above the Georgia standard deduction — $15,000 single, $30,000 married filing jointly.

Rates come from the agencies that set them: the IRS for the federal brackets, the standard deduction and FICA, cross-checked against the Social Security Administration for the wage base; the Georgia Department of Revenue for the state rate and deduction; and the Georgia Department of Labor for who pays unemployment insurance. Every Georgia figure was read on the agency’s own page on August 28, 2026. Our full sourcing is on the methodology page.

What the calculator deliberately does not do: it does not itemize deductions, apply tax credits, model multiple jobs, or account for health insurance premiums and other employer benefit deductions. It also does not model any county or city income tax, in Georgia or anywhere else — what it computes is the federal and state figure.

Many of the people asking this question are paid by the hour, not by the year. The calculator above takes an hourly rate directly — switch How often you are paid to Per hour, tell it how many hours a week you actually work, and it will show your take-home pay per hour, per week or per year.

Georgia’s flat rate makes the hourly arithmetic unusually easy to carry in your head. Above the deduction, every extra hour you work is taxed by the state at the same 4.99%, whether it is your first overtime hour of the year or your last.

Why we ask your hours instead of assuming 2,080

Most hourly calculators multiply your rate by 2,080 and call it your salary. That number assumes exactly 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, with no unpaid time off and no slow weeks — which is precisely what hourly work often is not. At 35 hours a week the same rate produces a materially smaller annual figure, and sometimes a lower federal bracket with it. We ask rather than assume.

What $20 an hour comes to in Georgia

At 40 hours a week, $20 an hour is $34,278 a year after tax, or about $2,856.52 a month. Your effective rate is 17.6%, and your real take-home rate is $16.48 an hour. That is the number worth carrying in your head when you are comparing job offers.

What $25 and $30 an hour come to

At $25 an hour you take home about $42,116 a year, a real rate of $20.25. At $30 it is $49,953, a real rate of $24.02. A $5 raise on paper is worth less than $5 in your pocket — and in Georgia a fixed 4.99% of that raise goes to the state on top of the federal share.

Tips and overtime: Georgia went its own way in 2026

This is the part most calculators get wrong, because it is new and because it differs from the federal rule. The Georgia Department of Revenue states plainly that “Georgia did not conform to the exemptions from income for overtime and tipped wages in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act”, and that “up to $1,750 of each may be exempted from the calculation of taxable net income”.

Put the two side by side and the gap is large:

So a server or a warehouse worker with a large tipped or overtime income gets a substantial federal deduction and only a small Georgia one. Both are claimed on a return, not through payroll, so neither changes what comes out of your check during the year, and neither is modeled above. The federal deductions run from 2025 through 2028 and phase out above $150,000 of modified adjusted gross income ($300,000 filing jointly). Sources: IRS, Working Families Tax Cuts, and Georgia Department of Revenue, Important Tax Updates, both read August 28, 2026.

Overtime and shift differentials in your withholding

For withholding purposes, overtime, reported tips and shift or holiday differentials are ordinary wages: your employer withholds federal income tax, FICA and Georgia tax on them exactly as on your base rate. A big overtime week can push that single paycheck into a higher federal withholding band, which is why it sometimes looks disappointing on the stub. Enter your realistic average hours, including overtime, for the most useful figure.

What this calculator does not cover

This tool models federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare and the payroll programs your state actually runs — nothing more. It deliberately leaves out:

• Itemized deductions and federal tax credits — the Child Tax Credit, the Earned Income Tax Credit, education credits. The engine always applies the standard deduction; there is no itemizing path.
• A second job, self-employment income or 1099 pay. Every dollar you enter is treated as one employer’s W-2 wages, taxed at the employee share of Social Security and Medicare — not the self-employment tax a 1099 worker actually owes.
• Pre-tax benefits other than the 401(k) field — health insurance premiums, an HSA or FSA, commuter benefits. The only amount taken out before tax is the percentage you enter for a 401(k).
• Local taxes — city income tax, county tax, or a school-district tax. Where a state levies one, our methodology page says so by name; this calculator does not add that line, with two exceptions: the Indiana and Maryland calculators add the local income tax for the county you choose.
• Overtime premiums. An hourly rate is multiplied by the hours you enter; it does not add a time-and-a-half rate for hours worked past 40 in a week.
• Wage garnishments or court-ordered deductions — child support, a wage levy. Your result assumes none exist.
• The Additional Medicare Tax, at the single-filer threshold. The 0.9% surtax above $200,000 is applied at that one figure for every filing status, the way an employer actually withholds it — not the higher threshold a married couple filing jointly may end up owing at tax return time.
• Married filing separately, or a qualifying surviving spouse. The calculator only offers single, married filing jointly, and head of household.

None of these are in the estimate. Some of them change what you owe or get back when you file, and a calculator cannot ask for everything they depend on. See why your pay stub will differ for the details.

Key facts that affect your take-home pay in Georgia

The rate is flat, and it fell again this year

The Georgia Department of Revenue states that “the Georgia income tax rate has been reduced to a flat rate of 4.99%” for 2026. Flat means there is nothing to climb: the same percentage applies to your first taxable dollar and your last. If you have seen a higher figure quoted for Georgia, it is out of date — the state has been stepping the rate down year by year.

The standard deduction depends on how you file

The state deduction rose to $15,000 for single filers, heads of household and married filing separately, or $30,000 for married filing jointly. Note the trap: head of household takes the single figure, not something in between the way the federal deduction works. Change the filing status in the calculator and you will see the Georgia line move.

Your Georgia effective rate is never quite 4.99%

Because the first $15,000 escapes entirely, the share of your whole salary that goes to Georgia always sits below the headline rate, and creeps toward it as you earn more. On $75,000 the state takes $2,994, which is 3.99% of gross. On $200,000 it is 4.62%. It approaches 4.99% and never reaches it.

Unemployment insurance is paid by your employer, not you

The Georgia Department of Labor is explicit: “In Georgia, employers pay the entire cost of unemployment insurance benefits.” It is charged on the first $9,500 of each employee’s annual wages. None of it is deducted from your pay, so it never appears on your stub — even though employer-side rates are often quoted as though workers paid them.

No state disability insurance and no paid family leave premium

Several states deduct a percentage for short-term disability or paid family leave. Georgia has neither program. Compare that with Washington, where two such programs come out of every check.

Social Security stops, Medicare does not

Social Security is charged at 6.2% only up to $184,500 of wages in 2026. Cross that line and your take-home pay jumps mid-year, because the deduction simply stops. Medicare has no such cap, and adds 0.9% above $200,000.

Your federal bracket and your Georgia rate are different things

You can be in the 22% federal bracket and still pay a flat 4.99% to Georgia. The two systems do not interact: Georgia does not have brackets, and moving up a federal bracket changes nothing about your state rate. This is one of the few states where that sentence is simple.

What a 401(k) does, and does not do

A pre-tax contribution lowers the income both the federal government and Georgia tax, so it cuts two bills at once. It does not reduce Social Security or Medicare, which are charged on your gross wages regardless. Try 10% in the calculator and watch which lines move and which do not.

Common mistakes people make

Using last year’s Georgia rate

The rate has changed repeatedly in recent years, and plenty of pages still quote an older figure. For 2026 it is 4.99%, from the Department of Revenue’s own updates page. A tenth of a point is worth about $60 a year to someone on $75,000, because the rate bites on the $60,000 left after the state deduction, not on the whole salary.

Assuming Georgia follows the federal tips and overtime rules

It does not, and the difference is measured in thousands. Federal law allows up to $25,000 of qualified tips; Georgia allows $1,750. If a meaningful share of your income is tips or overtime, that gap is the single most important thing on this page for you.

Giving head of household the middle deduction

Federally, head of household sits between single and joint. In Georgia it takes the same $15,000 as a single filer. People who assume otherwise overestimate their take-home pay.

Comparing a Georgia offer with a no-tax state on gross pay alone

A $75,000 offer in Atlanta and a $75,000 offer in Dallas are not the same offer: the difference is $2,994 a year, exactly the Georgia tax. That is the whole gap, because the federal tax and FICA are identical. Compare take-home, and then compare cost of living, which often runs the other way.

Entering take-home pay instead of gross

The single most common reason a calculator result looks wrong. The first field wants the number before anything is taken out.

Expecting the calculator to match the paystub to the dollar

It will not, and no calculator can. Your employer withholds from your W-4, including any extra amount you asked for; we estimate your liability on a simplified wage situation. A gap of a few percent is normal. See the disclaimer.

Example calculation

A single filer earning $75,000 a year in Atlanta, taking both standard deductions, with no 401(k) contribution:

The same salary in Texas leaves $61,592.50, because Texas levies no income tax at all. The gap is $2,994 — the Georgia tax line, and nothing else.

Compare with neighboring states

Georgia’s flat rate only means something next to what is around it:

• Texas — no income tax at all, and the ban is in its constitution. On $75,000 that is $2,994 a year more in your pocket.
• Nevada — also no income tax and no state payroll programs. The same paycheck as Texas.
• Florida — no income tax, and the comparison directly to the south.
• Tennessee — no income tax on wages, straight across the northern line.
• Alabama — a state income tax, and some municipal occupational taxes on top.
• South Carolina — a progressive state income tax reaching higher than Georgia’s flat rate.

Calculators for the unlinked states are being written. Each one needs its own rates read from that state’s own agency before it goes live — see the state index.

Sources

Every figure on this page is read from an official document and dated, not taken from another calculator — the federal ones from the IRS and the Social Security Administration, the Georgia ones from the state’s own document below. Each one carries the date we last checked that it still answers. If one of our numbers disagrees with one of theirs, they are right and we have a defect to fix — tell us.

The documents these figures are read from

• Georgia — Employer’s Tax Guide, 2026 (PDF) — the cut from 5.19% to 4.99%, and the May 11, 2026 date from which employers may withhold at the new rate.
• IRS — 2026 inflation adjustments (Rev. Proc. 2025-32) — the federal brackets and the $16,100 standard deduction.
• IRS — Topic no. 751, Social Security and Medicare withholding rates — the 6.2% and 1.45% rates and the 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax.
• SSA — Contribution and benefit base — the $184,500 Social Security wage base.

The agencies that set them

These are the offices that set the figures. We link them so you can start from the source yourself, but an agency’s own summary page is not always current, and we do not claim that these pages carry the 2026 number — several of them do not. Where a rate was read somewhere else, in a statute, a withholding guide or an estimated-tax form, the exact document and the date we read it are on our methodology page.

• Georgia Department of Revenue.

All links checked September 30, 2026.

Related reading

• Paycheck calculators by state — the full index, including which states have no income tax at all.
• Georgia salary to hourly — what an annual salary is worth per hour in Georgia, after tax and not just before.
• Methodology — the exact formula, every 2026 figure with its official source, and what these calculators deliberately do not model.
• Why your pay stub will differ — pre-tax deductions, credits and W-4 settings, and how much difference is normal.